Supporters say bill is a necessary first step in regulating tech companies and requiring them to protect children from harmful online content and take responsibility for harms their platforms can cause
KOSA is pretty gross. It’s basically giving the government (and, by extension, whomever is in charge of said government) the ability to literally say “This is harmful to children, you’re legally liable if children find it.” to ANY topic they want.
I’m sure the reasons that’s bad don’t really need much explanation.
What’s going to happen is not that those things will be banned for children, they’ll just be flat-out banned. Corporate “trust and safety” teams making these rules do not view things with shades of grey: if there’s a material risk to the company, then fuck it, it’s not allowed. Don’t want kids talking about marijuana? Banned. Abortion? Banned. Drag? Banned. LGBT people in general? Banned. (Source: about a decade of doing that work.)
This is not so much a slippery slope as a greased-up slip-n-slide they want to push everyone down.
KOSA is pretty gross. It’s basically giving the government (and, by extension, whomever is in charge of said government) the ability to literally say “This is harmful to children, you’re legally liable if children find it.” to ANY topic they want.
I’m sure the reasons that’s bad don’t really need much explanation.
What’s going to happen is not that those things will be banned for children, they’ll just be flat-out banned. Corporate “trust and safety” teams making these rules do not view things with shades of grey: if there’s a material risk to the company, then fuck it, it’s not allowed. Don’t want kids talking about marijuana? Banned. Abortion? Banned. Drag? Banned. LGBT people in general? Banned. (Source: about a decade of doing that work.)
This is not so much a slippery slope as a greased-up slip-n-slide they want to push everyone down.